


Familiar Daring

by witchkings



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (unsuccessful), Drama, M/M, Thranduil POV, White Council, homewrecker!Thranduil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28134918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchkings/pseuds/witchkings
Summary: When Thranduil is excluded from the meeting of the White Council, he means to take revenge on Galadriel. An opportunity to do so presents itself in the shape of an old friend.
Relationships: Celeborn/Galadriel | Artanis, Celeborn/Thranduil (Tolkien)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Familiar Daring

**Author's Note:**

> This little fic is a loose collaboration with my friend darklord on tumblr. She drew a super fun little comic, check it out:
> 
> https://darklord.tumblr.com/post/637779726191247360/thranduil-vs-wholesome-marriage
> 
> Hope you enjoy :)
> 
> (might write pre-/sequels later)

„Forgive me, mylord, but while the council is in attendance, I may not admit visitors,“ the Galadhrim guard said. His cadence was not so much carefully levelled as rather lacking of a general emotional connotation. His posture was tall and straight without conveying pride, his features schooled into diplomatic neutrality, his platinum hair pulled back into a perfunctory shape. He lacked scent and stance, character and conviction, he was entirely too much of a brainless puppet for the liking of Thranduil who was so used to his Woodland kin. They preferred informed obedience that hissed and bit back at times to the blind submission this Elf displayed.

“Surely, you must be aware of who I am,” he replied fixing the guard with his icy stare. Thranduil towered half a head over him, but the Galadhrim was evidently a trained fighter, muscles defined even though his fine grey attire aimed to hide them.

“I am entirely aware, King Thranduil. Your identity has no bearing on your admittance. Those meant to partake in the proceedings are behind these doors.”

The nuance, carefully wrapped in positive statements, was clear. He was not meant to participate. Swallowing his pride, Thranduil shot a smile at the guard. He would not usually describe himself as petty or childish, but he was piqued by this oversight. To call for a council of the most wise and ancient beings on Middle-Earth in order to stench the flow of innocent blood and protect the lands from evils lesser and greater alike without extending an invitation to the Greenwood was more than indiscreion. It was a statement both political and personal, and Thranduil thought to repay in kind.

“What is your name, soldier?” he asked, cocking his head. His own hair flowed with the movement, unrestrained by social convention or bounds of practicality, as it followed the lines of his favourite burgundy robe. His personal guard had stayed on the borders of Lothlórien, not at all inclined to enter a forest that seemed at once more wistful and more hostile than their own. Thranduil could not begrudge them this, uneasiness had welled up in his chest like blood from a wound the moment he had stepped into the realm of the one they so blasphemously called the Lady of Light.

“Haldir, mylord.”

“Well then, Haldir, thank you for your services. Give your Lady my well-wishes, if you please.” With that, Thranduil pivoted and strutted back down the small walkway that led him to a wide, winding staircase which hugged the massive tree in whose crown Galadriel’s palace was situated. Flowy structures of wood and vine speckled the surrounding trunks and all Lothlórien was basked in a golden haze, as though the trees had absorbed the light of the setting sun and reflected it manifold. At the foot of the tree, a galaxy of yellow Elanor flowers covered the forest floor. There was an air of age and weight to the space and yet to Thranduil, who best loved to hear leaves crunch underfoot and slumber in his caverns under the earth, this realm seemed fragile as though he had but to seize any of its structures and it would crumble to dust under his fingers. His robe hushed over the whittled wood of the staircase until at last, he emerged in the cradle of the tree’s great roots that held a patch of daisy-ridden grass upon which several of Galadriel’s subjects sat in clusters, caught in song or needle-work.

Thranduil passed them with his chin raised and though several of them glanced at him, he was generally disregarded. Such was the standing of the distant kin of their sovereigns, another blow to the fissured vessel of Thranduil’s pride. He resolved not to examine the broader implications of this and strutted along, eyes fixed on the road ahead which would lead him out of the forest. Homebound. He moved proud as a great stag, focused as a horse with blinkers to either side, blind to the wicked beauty of Lothlórien and still, his gaze found a familiar face, nearly obscured by low-hanging branches.

To pursue the hunch he felt shudder through him at the sight or to ignore it and walk away this instant, leaving Lothlórien for perhaps the last time. Thranduil halted, head slightly tilted to listen for a whisper on a gale that might steer him in either direction, but the air was as still as his own breath in that pause for consideration. Naught to guide him, but the instinct that had first sprung up in his gut and was now steadily morphing into a thought, a vivid picture, a scheme to exact his revenge right this instant. Dreaded was the day in which Thranduil would quietly accept humiliation such as this and damn himself to bristling in his own halls, never to emerge into civilization again. Dreaded it was and so he would prevent it from coming.

Thranduil uprooted himself and slanted leftward, ducked away from the trees’ embrace and stepped around a thicket of ivy. Hidden from the path and all the rest of Lothlórien, on a bench carved from the same smooth wood as its structures, sat its king, feet bare against the springy moss that covered the alcove, eyes closed in a perfect rendition of peace, internal and external. Celeborn’s silver hair shone like a freshly polished blade and his fine features were slack with relaxation, hands folded on his lap. He wore a garment of white so bright it had to have been bleached, threaded through with strands of the same gleaming silver and embroidered with tiny crystals in a line down his sleeves and sides. This version of Celeborn presented itself in a gaping dissonance to how Thranduil had learned to love his kinsman, centuries back when they had been youths in a forest none yet left in this world could ever hope to compare to.

Back then, Celeborn would have been hard-pressed for serenity, the eager warrior and warlord he had been, would have worn his hair in practical braids, clothes blending in with his surroundings rather than standing out. He had been daring, cunning, always leaping from one tree to the next, from one challenge to the next, from one scheme to the next, and often, Thranduil had given in to the undertow of his force, had let himself be pulled along the flow is his energy.

And yet, when Thranduil sank down beside his old friend, the smile that graced his lips was the same. Wistful, drawing from a deep well of cheeky joy like Thranduil had never been able to come by and his heartbeat rose to it as it had done a million times over. This was more than an opportunity to get back at Galadriel, this too could be a meagre attempt at regaining a sliver of what he had lost when Doriath had fallen.

“Welcome, beloved friend,” Celeborn said and in his tone lay hidden secrets Thranduil would have to beg to be prone to. Here was the one being who alone saw all that was in the mind of Galadriel and though that knowledge had to be manifold, heavy in nature for the implications it had for the fate of the world, Celeborn seemed alight with it, light with it. “Why do you tread hither?”

“Take your pick. Any reason might serve,” Thranduil said.

“Except for the truth, of course.” Celeborn blinked his eyes open and arched his neck, hooded gaze meeting Thranduil’s. It was another reach across the span of time, those eyes who demanded all of Thranduil’s attention, coloured like sacred springs deep in Menegroth, the vibrance muted to a sheen of grey by the dispersion of light through the canopy of trees overhead.

“What are you implying?” Thranduil, despite his momentary lapse into nostalgia, had not missed the hidden jab.

“Only that I am glad you finally realized how terrible of a liar you are. At least to one who knows you as well as a brother might.”

“Do you mean to insinuate dishonesty on my part?” Thranduil asked and was shocked to find how deeply the accusation shook him. His fingers curled around his own knees to keep the reaction contained. He had only ever planned to claim his rightful spot among the great of these lands, but he had already driven himself too deeply into this weave of implications. He would have to go through with it.

“Not at all,” Celeborn said. His gaze never wavered, his smile never wavered, the air of calm and contention around him never wavered, but Thranduil’s intent did. Could he misuse his friend and his affections to treat a wound as old and festering as his own kingdom?

“What then?”

“I see you resort to other conversational tactics. But alas, I am in no mood to stench the flow of your questions with answers you would not like anyway. Will you not sit with me and enjoy the sun?” With that, Celeborn stretched his arms and turned his face skyward once more. The scattered rays of light painted his cheeks and forehead a faded yellow and Thranduil was struck once more by his beauty.

“If you claim to know me so well, you would know that I prefer to bask in lunar light,” Thranduil replied. Celeborn’s ensuing laugh tinkled through Thranduil’s body and gave him the necessary courage to surge forward and capture his friend’s jaw in his palm, gently forcing it back towards him. Celeborn’s smile died and his lids fluttered.

“You always have,” he murmured.

“Hush.” Thranduil’s thumb ran over Celeborn’s plush lips which parted easily under the touch and his body became pliable, drawn in by Thranduil’s gravity, the simple allure of familiar daring, daring familiarity. “I have also shared much of your life with you and consider myself a fair judge of your character.”

“Which is?” Celeborn asked.

“Which is constituted in such a way that I find it hard to believe you would settle down in quiet.”

“People change, Thranduil.”

“I do not,” Thranduil said, and seized the breath between his words and Celeborn’s retort to bridge the remaining distance between them. Celeborn’s lips were warm and soft, as pliant as the rest of him and were Thranduil expected him to protest benignly, or perhaps not to react at all, his friend returned the kiss with a startled laugh that remained lodged in his chest. It was by no means the first time that they came together in this manner and Thranduil’s muscles remembered it much more vividly than his mind did. Where his memories were hazy pictures of distorted colours and radiant but quickly spent passion, his fingers knew how to traipse down Celeborn’s neck to make his breath catch, his lips knew how to coax needy thirst from Celeborn’s, his hands knew how to find their way through the impossible layers of Celeborn’s attire, trace his collarbone, find the frantic thud in his chest.

He chose to ignore the symphony of emotions that coursed through his own body. It was not simple deprivation of bodily comfort nor even the comfort of the memory that stirred Thranduil’s innermost workings, no it was the gentle persistence with which Celeborn kissed him back, the eagerness with which Celeborn’s own hands came to rest over Thranduil’s shoulder blades. As though he himself had long lacked this breed of affection. They fell into a rhythm that made Thranduil’s bones sing and just when he rejoiced in how well his plan had worked and what he was gaining in the process, just when he thought Celeborn might invite him to something more familiar, more daring, they were interrupted.

“Thranduil,” a smooth voice said, deep as the clutches of night and cold as starlight. Thranduil tarried, caught in the midst of their last kiss, drew it out until he could no longer. Their lips parted, their breaths still heavy and mingled. It took ages for his head to turn away from Celeborn’s and his eyes to meet the levelled stare of Galadriel. She wore a blank mask.

“Mylady,” Thranduil said. He was slow to detach his fingers from Celeborn’s heartbeat, made sure to drag them over his prickling skin before slipping out of the robe and onto his own lap. Celeborn looked dishevelled, flushed, pupils blown wide and yet somehow unfazed even though it was his wife of all people who had caught them fooling around like adolescents. “I had presumed your engagement with the Council would last well into the night. Do not begrudge me the fact that you had to bear witness to our reunion.”

“It is hardly necessary to demand forgiveness for a transgression this trivial. I cannot claim to be surprised.”

Thranduil’s gut dropped, his eyes narrowed. She could not claim to have foreseen this, no matter how great a sorceress she might be, how clear her vision of the future. She knew not of their shared history, nor of Thranduil’s deepest desires.

“I see,” was all the reply he could muster and he found himself unable to look at Celeborn.

“Another would not be so mild in their judgment,” Galadriel continued. “Consider yourself lucky, son of Oropher, that my husband and I have discussed this very possibility beforehand.”

“Really? Is your marriage so brittle that you must resort to satisfaction provided by outsiders?” Thranduil asked. Striking back the only way forward what with the cocktail of twisted emotions that extinguished the joy of kissing Celeborn.

“Do not belittle our relationship, nor our capability for love just because you cannot hope to understand them. Let us put this incident behind us.”

“Gladly.” Thranduil stood, and straightened his robe, twisted his rings back to face outward where they had slipped. Still, he could not bear to look at Celeborn, Celeborn who had unwillingly rekindled a flame in Thranduil’s chest, whose lips still had to be wet and swollen from their heated kisses, who would only have kindness to spare for one who felt deeply furious at everyone and everything around him. Thranduil would have taken ire and outrage, would have provoked further if encouraged, but this was even more embarrassing than any lack of invitation could ever be. It confirmed what he had always known to be true. He was an outcast, isolated from his distant kin, not to be taken seriously, lightly disregarded, uninfluential. Thranduil lifted his chin and walked away.

“Thranduil?” Galadriel called after him and a muscle in her cheek twitched as though she had to strain to retain her perfectly neutral expression though in what shape her inner workings would contort her face was unreadable to Thranduil.

“Yes, mylady?”

“The next time you mean to seduce my husband, kindly ask permission beforehand.”

Thranduil did not give an answer. Celeborn was right, after all. He was a terrible liar.


End file.
